


Follow The Sun

by Seeking_Xanadu



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Bruce Wayne Has Issues, Bruce tries, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Dick Grayson-centric, Gen, and Bruce knows it, damian is proof, dick grayson is a better dad figure than Bruce, if bruce is dad Alfred is Grandma, no beta we fly like dick grayson without a net, preferably from Bruce, preferably when he is not dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:01:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23945116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seeking_Xanadu/pseuds/Seeking_Xanadu
Summary: Bruce has a realisation. Dick loves the Bat family - except Bruce has taught him to second guess his feelings.
Relationships: Alfred Pennyworth & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 22
Kudos: 288





	Follow The Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Del Shannon's Keep Searchin' (We'll Follow The Sun)

Bruce sighed in irritation as he threw his phone on to the table and sagged in his chair. It had been a short conversation; he hadn’t had a chance to even extend the invite. Why was it so hard to have any conversation of consequence with his eldest? 

Alfred was eyeing him with exasperation and Bruce felt too tired to question what was Alfred’s deal or to deal with Alfred’s passive aggressive ways. Bruce had decided to make this particular call in the study – and it was looking like a tactical mistake right about now. Bruce wanted to pout. 

Bruce pouted. 

It didn’t work. 

If anything, the waves of impatience rolling from where Alfred stood by the window only intensified. Bruce stayed quiet; tactical advance might be Dick’s specialty but Bruce knew a thing or two about tactical retreat. But Alfred was a seasoned warrior and he knew Bruce’s moves five moves before Bruce made them. So when Bruce made to leave the field; Alfred closed in with, “One more Christmas holiday without Master Dick, I gather?”

Bruce landed heavily back on the chair. “Harper’s daughter is being kept overnight in the hospital. Apparently what was a mild flu has developed into mild pneumonia.” He sighed, “Roy is in Malaysia, so...” 

“Ah,” Alfred said wistfully. He turned towards the door to leave, “If there is nothing else, sir?”

“Go on Alfred.” Bruce nodded absently as he sat there looking out of his study window, chin resting on his palm. He closed his eyes. How have I not realized it before? 

“Sir?” 

Bruce started. Was I talking aloud?

“You were talking aloud, sir.”

Bruce huffed as he got up and stalked to the window. He heard Alfred shut the door behind him and walk to stand behind his elbow – a solid shadow as usual. Bruce was thankful for his quiet support.

“Thank you, sir.”

That got a laugh out of Bruce – “Alfred, I think I have lost my mind.”

“Figuring it out only now, are you?” came the arch reply. When Bruce looked over at Alfred, the older man was wearing a twinkle in his eye and a sharp smile. 

Bruce fingered the old lace on the window curtains as he looked out and beyond to a past he rarely walked back to. “It has been a while since Dick was home for the Christmas holidays, Alfred. It used to be his favourite holiday too. You remember?”

“Master Dick baking the special cookie from his mother’s recipe, leaving milk and a full plate of cookies for Santa and,” Alfred laughed softly, “he said the tree was far too big. He took that as a challenge.” “Bruce,” a gentle touch to his elbow, “children grow up, you know. The things that consoled them in childhood don’t work the same way when they are adults. You know that better than most.”

“Dick still reads the Robin Hood book he brought with him, 50 rounds on the trapeze is still his idea of relaxation, he still watches those old children’s movies, has the same friends, and he still tears at his lips when hunting a lead. No, Alfred. This is something else.” Bruce had lost the faraway look in his eyes now. He worried the skin of his left thumb as was his way as he worked his way to a clue. Bruce turned from the window and began pacing as he broke down the argument.

“I still get a handwritten card for my birthday. We have heard enough about Dick’s gifts to the other children to know he doesn’t forget theirs either. Last year, he took you out for that Shakespeare play on Broadway–” 

“Something Rotten! A fresh idea and so much fun as he put it,” Alfred offered softly. 

Bruce nodded. Bruce remembered how the day after Dick and Alfred had relentlessly dodged each other through lunch on their Shakespeareana. Bruce recalled the tableau vividly – Damian staring intensely at Dick with a furrowed brow, Cassandra grinning in joy at Dick’s theatrics and Alfred’s gravitas, Stephanie needling the two, Jason with his mouth open, Barbara and Tim exchanging looks and Duke, new to the family then, a silent observer. 

Whenever the circus came to Gotham, Dick was there – taking Cassandra and dragging Jason to a show, and, wrangling Damian to meet his childhood friends – the circus animals.

Dick rarely missed Damian’s art shows or school meetings – Bruce was man enough to admit Damian instinctively chose to inform Dick about school-related activities and he was proud enough of his eldest and his effortless ways with his youngest. (He wasn’t man enough to say that aloud to Alfred). There was a bit of him that felt chagrined by their relationship – probably because he just couldn’t put a pin on it. And Nightwing always came to Gotham, either because Batman or one of his brothers had called or because of his own cases. 

“It has been years, Alfred. He has been clever in choosing his excuses every year, very clever with how he ensured there was no pattern to notice.” 

Alfred rubbed an imaginary lint off his suit, “How machiavellian, sir! I wonder where the young master learnt it.” 

“You are enjoying this,” Bruce scoffed.

A nod, “seeing you wrong-footed so and at the hands of one of your own? Definitely, sir.”

Bruce made an awkward gesture with his arm, “It doesn’t become you, Alfred.”

“Neither does that pout become you, sir.”

Bruce rubbed the bridge of his nose, “He spent a Christmas with Clark, Jefferson said he had spent one with the Pierces; Alfred, why not come home?”

Alfred hummed. 

Bruce narrowed his eyes, “What, Alfred? If you have something to say, speak clearly.” 

“Only that you seem to have forgotten certain salient points, sir.”

“Like what?!” Bruce nearly growled. 

Alfred sighed as he walked towards Bruce. When he reached Bruce, he said, “Why did you never adopt him, Bruce?” 

Whatever Bruce thought Alfred was going to say, this was not what he had expected. His teeth clacked as he bit down on the shiver that slithered and hissed down his spine. Alfred went on, “The boy was practically your son as it was. All it needed was a piece of paper to cement it.”

“I- I didn’t – I thought – ” Bruce shook his head. 

“Don’t say you thought you couldn’t be a father,” Alfred snapped finally, a vein of anger lacing the words. “You were far more a father to Master Dick than you were to the others and far longer too and yet the lad forever stayed your ward.”

“Not forever, Alfred. The wardship dissolved when he was 18,” Bruce walked to the bookshelves lining the study – looking. “We were partners, Alfred. Dick was always particular about that.” 

Alfred’s frown deepened. “Yes, as the dynamic duo. That you never realized how much the lad craved your company out of the mask makes me question your vaunted abilities, sir.” 

Bruce took out a book at random and then put it away without even looking at it. Bruce swallowed as he turned and said softly, “Alfred? Did I do this?” 

Alfred shook his head, “I do not like ruminating on what-ifs, Bruce – though, I admit, I initially presumed both of you had discussed it. When nothing came of it for years, and then your relationship waned as he began working on his own, I am ashamed I was fearful of the answers if I were to question you or him.” 

“And then I adopted the others.” Bruce grunted. “I failed, Alfred. I failed to give Dick the family he sought and now I wonder why he spends his favourite time of the year with the family he built on his own.”

“The lad has grown up well, Bruce. You should be proud of that.” 

Affection bubbled up in his chest. “Did I do anything, Alfred? Or did he grow up well in spite of me?” He turned towards Alfred as he said, “I am very proud of everything he has achieved, Alfred. Always far too bright for me – and such a quick study; barely nine years old and he could see things that I was overlooking even after days of poring over the cases.” 

Bruce stopped by a shelf and let his eyes pass over the spines. It was not as if Bruce hadn’t thought of adopting Dick. At various times, Bruce had told himself Dick would be in increased danger if Dick became a Wayne, that there would be more kidnappers after him than before, that the media gossip and society chatter would be even more unforgiving; Dick had always been an independent child and that streak only grew as he entered his teenage years. And then his new fear had been that Dick didn’t even like him anymore. Looking back, those were all shallow arguments, borne of fear and denial.

Alfred stepped towards the desk and fingered the papers trying to bring some semblance to the mess on the desk. “Perhaps it is time you revisited your decision. To him, you were always a father. Even when you threw him out after young master Jason, even then, he did not reject you or the children who came after. His commitment to your son should be enough evidence, wouldn’t you say, sir.”

“Clark asked me once, long ago now, if I planned to adopt Dick. I told him Dick was my responsibility. I was afraid Clark would ask Dick himself and that Dick would say yes.”

“The lad did always love Master Clark but he loved you too well to have chosen him over you,” Alfred soothed. 

“I wonder why. He taught me much more than I ever taught him. He is still teaching me, Alfred, if yours and Damian’s words mean anything,” Bruce smiled softly as he saw the book he had been looking for. A rare 1883 edition Robin Hood he had picked up from a collector he had sent to jail on charges of theft and fraud. A 9-year old Dick had spent his entire weekend with his nose in the book. Alfred had joked that “the lad was on his third reading already, sir.” 

Alfred shook his head, “Children baffle their guardians, Master Bruce. What I say might sound harsh but it needs to be said. You should have thought about the boy, his well-being, rather than yourself, sir. You should have dropped the ambiguity and shown him his place in the family.” 

Bruce turned the pages of the book, “I am afraid I am no longer worthy of him. I tried to be a father to Jason, to Timothy, I am trying to be a father to Cassandra and Damian; do I deserve to be his father anymore?” 

Alfred eyed the book. “That is quite a misguided question, sir. I won’t say that he needs you like the other children need you. Master Dick has taught himself to not look to you for positive reinforcement. But I would say that you can still offer him a tangible acknowledgment of his place in your life, in this family. The lad might have got you to let him go out as your partner, but he was far too attuned to your feelings to ask you to be his father.”

Bruce pressed the book to his heart. “And if he refuses?”

Alfred gave him a look and Bruce offered a tight smile, “I have been a first class idiot, haven’t I?”

“Absolutely, sir,” Alfred agreed.

Alfred’s face softened, “Master Dick tries to spend Boxing Days with us whenever he can. Invite him this time, Bruce. Let him bring the child too. It is time you had a conversation that is already years late.” 

Bruce sighed as he walked back to his desk, the book clutched in one his hand. “It is probably too little too late, though I shall try.”

“Don’t call him now, sir, his priority is the child in his care; once the child is recovered, I shall invite Master Dick and his goddaughter for lunch with the family.”

Bruce looked thoughtfully at the book as he nodded. “And maybe this book will find itself one more dedicated reader,” he said softly. 


End file.
